My computer has 6 hdds connected to the motherboard. Five of them have buffers but one of them doesn't. What's a hdd buffer? Is there something wrong with the drive if it doesn't have a buffer? If I move all the files off the drive and format it, will it create a buffer?

The drive is a Seagate ST310003440AS ,1T. It's about 1 year old or less. I didn't notice that there was no buffer until I installed and the HD Tune Test in order to check my drive temps. Along with other info, it gives the buffer size. The drive seems to work fine but I'm wondering if it's slow or undependable because there's no buffer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmxfreakrider

First thought (besides if the drive shipped without any cache) would be the logic board has failed....

I don't know what a logic board is but everything else works very well in my pc.

I have the receipt for the drive but I didn't know that I had to register it. I'm not sure if it's too late to register it now, but I'll find out

I purchased the drive on 12/21/08 and the paperwork says that there's a 5 year warranty. I just requested an RMA form at Seagate. I went in circles for about 5 minutes looking for the form myself but each link I followed eventually brought me back to the "Request an RMA form" page. I'm in no hurry . . . I have all the files on the drive backed up and I haven't had a problem using the files on the drive, but I'd still like to get a drive that has a buffer. I don't know if it came that way because I didn't run HD Tune until a few days ago and the drive works fine so I didn't have a reason to question its health status.

"Warranty Status
1 product submitted: 1 Invalid Warranty
Product Model Number /
Part Number Serial Number Warranty End Date Return
Invalid Warranty Products
If you believe this is an error, re-enter the model, part and serial number.
Invalid or missing model/part number or serial entry."

I gave the entire model and serial number so that can't be the problem. I took the drive out of an external enclosure. Could it be that the problem is that it's an OEM drive?

Was the enclosure made by seagate? if so, then maybe the warranty will only work with the enclosure.

I don't think so. I bought most of my externals at eBay and they were put into generic cases. I had 23 externals so I can't remember which case held the drive. Some of the smaller drives are still in their cases. I kept all the cases but after looking them over, no information on the cases was helpful. I know the name of the company on eBay that sold me the drive and I still have all the boxes that the drives came in but without knowing which case went with the drive, the info is useless. I should have marked the boxes, cases and drives for this possibility. My bad. Hopefully, Seagate will have better news when I call them.

That's the problem with Ebay, Might not be a authorized seller for seagate and thus no warranty from Seagate, some sellers buy overstock or if a shipping crate gets damaged the contents get sold at discount. So it may not be under warranty. Ebay can be risky.